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Mission Status 2007
Kevin V. Gilliland Stardust Spacecraft Team
December 20, 2007
Stardust had two DSN passes this week. All subsystems are nominal. Background sequence SN006 is running and SN007 is on board. Stardust is in conjunction now, and no uplinks are planned until the Sun-spacecraft-Earth angle is greater than 2 deg, on Wednesday, January 9, 2008. This is the last weekly report of 2007, a very busy year for the Stardust NExT team since returning to operations in August. Some of the highlights include returning the Comet and Inter-stellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA) to operation and calibrating the Navigation Camera. Also, Systems Engineering redelivered express command products, and re-established regular background sequence generation. The Navigation team designed and the Spacecraft team successfully executed a Trajectory Correction Maneuver to target Earth flyby in 2009. As the year comes to a close, the Stardust NExT team is well-prepared for the mission ahead.
December 13, 2007
Stardust had one DSN pass this week, the last contact before solar conjunction. All subsystems are nominal.
Background sequences will manage downlink during the conjunction, although no uplinks are planned until the Sun-spacecraft-Earth angle is greater than 2 deg, on Wednesday, January 9, 2008. The first pass of background sequence SN006 is next week, on Monday, December 17.
December 6, 2007
The frequency of the tracking passes are decreasing as Stardust continues its quiescent cruise. All subsystems are nominal. The command products for the upcoming solar conjunction period were successfully radiated to the spacecraft during the tracking pass on Wednesday, December 5th. These products ensure the spacecraft can operate nominally during the conjunction outage. Commanding will be suspended on 07-351 (17 Dec) until 08-008 (8 Jan) while the Sun-spacecraft-Earth angle is below 2 deg. Stardust's pointing reference is based on the Earth and Sun vectors, so the spacecraft attitude will flip nearly 150 deg about the Z axis on 07-364 (30 Dec). This flip will be completed in approximately 4 hours. Background sequence SN005 is executing. Background sequences SN006 and SN007 were radiated to the spacecraft and are awaiting their execution start time.
November 28, 2007
Stardust continues its quiescent cruise. All subsystems are nominal.
Background sequence SN005 is executing. Background sequences SN006 and SN007 are in development.
Preparations are underway for the upcoming conjunction. Commanding will be suspended on 07-351 (17 Dec) until 08-008 (8 Jan) while the Sun-spacecraft-Earth angle is below 2 deg. Stardust's pointing reference is based on the Earth and Sun vectors, so the spacecraft attitude will flip nearly 150 deg about the Z axis on 07-364 (30 Dec). This flip will be completed in approximately 4 hours. As part of the ongoing effort to improve fuel efficiency, the spacecraft began using a new 20-deg deadband parameter set last week. Fuel savings have exceeded 20% since implementing the new controller.
November 21, 2007
On Tuesday, November 20, the Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA) instrument was successfully returned to nominal operations. As during the prime mission, CIDA will continue its search for interstellar particles as part of the cruise activities. All subsystems are nominal as Stardust continues its quiescent cruise.
